What we take for virtue is often but an assemblage of various ambitions and activities that chance, or our own astuteness, have arranged in a certain manner; and it is not always out of courage or purity that men are brave, and women chaste.

Nothing is so contagious as example; and we never do any great good or evil which does not produce its like.

There are people who, like new songs, are in vogue only for a time.

A person well satisfied with themselves is seldom satisfied with others, and others, rarely are with them.

Some beautiful things are more dazzling when they are still imperfect than when they have been too perfectly crafted.

It is as easy to deceive one's self without perceiving it, as it is difficult to deceive others without their finding out.

The measure of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it.